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Showing posts from February, 2011

Is Google to be Trusted?

In 2004, Google upended Yahoo's email platform with the release of Gmail. Within one year after that, Yahoo was tottering on the brink of bankruptcy and the rest as they say is now history. To steal Yahoo's thunder (and to a large extent, Microsoft's Hotmail), Google simply made a radical promise - unlimited email storage for ever. In the years since, Google has gradually walked back from those words, first by releasing a 5 GB storage, and then providing a counter to show an ever increasing mailbox size, and then with the release of Google Apps for Business premier with 25 GB, raising the stakes to show that not all users are equal. But at no time did Google make the proposition open that it would force users to either have to delete messages from their mailbox or be compelled to pay for more storage as Yahoo did in the runup to its shellacking. But that is exactly what Google's practice has become of late.

SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR XCODE

  ENGLISH APPLE INC. SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR XCODE  PLEASE READ THIS SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE DEVELOPER SOFTWARE (DEFINED BELOW). BY USING THE DEVELOPER SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE.  IF YOU ARE ACCESSING THE DEVELOPER SOFTWARE ELECTRONICALLY, SIGNIFY YOUR AGREEMENT TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE BY CLICKING THE "AGREE " BUTTON.  IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, DO NOT USE THE DEVELOPER SOFTWARE AND CLICK “DISAGREE”. FOR DEVELOPER SOFTWARE INCLUDED WITH YOUR PURCHASE OF HARDWARE, YOU MUST RETURN THE ENTIRE HARDWARE/SOFTWARE PACKAGE IN ORDER TO OBTAIN A REFUND. 

iOS SDK Agreement

Apple Inc. iOS SDK Agreement Internal Use Only; No Redistribution PLEASE SCROLL DOWN AND READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE SOFTWARE. THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND APPLE. IF YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, CLICK THE “AGREE” BUTTON OR CHECK THE BOX DISPLAYED AT THE END OF THIS AGREEMENT IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON AN APPLE WEBSITE. BY CLICKING “AGREE”, CHECKING THE BOX OR BY DOWNLOADING, USING OR COPYING ANY PART OF THIS SDK, YOU ARE AGREEING ON YOUR OWN BEHALF AND/OR ON BEHALF OF YOUR COMPANY TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS STATED BELOW. IF YOU DO NOT OR CANNOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU CANNOT USE THIS SDK.  DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR USE THIS SDK IN THAT CASE.

Of Aliens and US Presidents....

Dogs and Plague

Sleeping with Dogs have consequences : So a case of plague makes public health investigators, and bioterrorism responders, come running. And as recounted by the CDC Friday morning , they ran to Oregon — and found no sign that this rural household had been subjected to a bioterror attack or involved in anything nefarious. But they did find dogs. One of the dogs slept on the bed of one of the humans. They checked the dog, which looked healthy, and in its blood they found evidence that, at some earlier point, the dog had been infected with Y. pestis too. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/dogs-fleas-plague/ 

The age of Obama is upon us - Gate calls for responsible use of force

" The strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces, be they army or marines, airborne, infantry or special operations is self evident, given the likelihood of counter-terrorism, rapid reaction, disaster response or stability or security force assistance missions," he said. "But in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined . " -- Bob Gate, US Defense Secretary, West Point, New York In those words, Gates, a Bush holdover in the Obama administration covertly condemned his predecessor and his previous boss for their ill-fated gun-totting approach to diplomacy in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. Bush absconded from his role as a leader and simply became a cheerleader. Obama has managed to bring in a level headed approach to his role. Here indeed is the Obama doctrine.

In Libya , an opportunity for Bush's dreams in the middle-east

The situation in Libya today is perilous as Muammer Qaddafi and is sons show their genocidal hands in full glare of the international community. Qaddafi promised early in the week to open up the state military arsenal to his minions and mercenaries to turn Libya red. It is time the international community beat back that promise with an international army (under the control of any willing nation, even the US) to drive Qaddafi and his sons out of power by the end of the coming week. If this happens, those flowers that George Bush dreamed of being thrown at US forces of "liberation" in Iraq will indeed materialize in Tripoli and other Libyan cities. This is one time when American and global forces will have complete legitimacy with the people of an invaded nation.

In Egypt, Power Corrupts -- or was it stealth coup

There is report that the Egyptian Army (or call it the military) is falling back into familiar formation - attack on the Egyptian people. African military have continued to demonstrate their detachment from the people whose sovereignty they were supposed to guarantee.  Two weeks after Hosni Muburak was shamed out of power, and seeing the seeming toothless barking of the United States and the rest of the international community as Qadaffi massacre Libyans, the Egyptian cowardic dogs seems to have found their mojo - now they are increasing their overt violence against the Egyptian people, stealthily, I might add. Was this the game plan all along? Throw Mubarak and his scheming sons out and then return to the status quo.

Democracy : A call to arm

The idea behind modern democratic movement is that all human beings are "created" equal and thus have the "divine" right to decide who constitute the government that run their affairs in public (internally - locally, and externally -foreign), which shape that government takes. To be fair, no single country in the world yet fully imbibe the principles behind this idea, but the United States of America has consistently (despite its storied history and imperfect present) provided the most basic model of that idea.